As a kid that played Lazer Tag, among other games like it, I really like the concept applied to Harry Potter wands.

New Legion season starts in March. This is both hot and terrifying. As usual. Aubrey Plaza.

Danny Boyle directing Bond? Well. Possibly a good thing. Not as good as a Nolan version though, surely.

The teaser for the new Netflix series reboot for Lost in Space looks like a reimagining and a completely different direction, and I quite like it. Great cast too. Design work looks solid so far. CANT WAIT TO SEE THE BOT.

According to the production crew, this is a close reference on the film version of Shazam/Captain Marvel’s costume.

I still have no faith in the Krypton series, but how sad is it that their version of Braniac looks better formed and designed than any villain in the DCEU?

More Altered Carbon, this time a full trailer. I did not expect the man out of time situation.

Another day, another Director defection from Gambit. This, just as Fox released the schedule for the upcoming supers films in active development. It’s still pretty strange that Fox is putting Deadpool 2 within two weeks of Han Solo. Even if the negotiations for final contract on the merger/sale are going to take years, you’d think they’d already be moving these projects a bit farther apart…

Duncan Jones’ Mute hits Netflix next month, along with Altered Carbon. I’m never leaving the house. Except for when I leave the house.

It’s early yet, so I’ll be convinced when it’s officially greenlit, but the Black Widow film has been assigned a screenwriter, which is 100% more than they’ve done on this project so far. And, while I would prefer an espionage film similar in tone to Winter Soldier, it sounds like it might be a Lady Liberators situation.

These are amazing: Desktop dumpsters, sized for magazines and thereabouts. Ready for your graffiti skills. Or skillz, if you are young (or too old)… and while we’re at it, I also need a Vestaboard, THANKS.

We’re recovering from Heroes and Villains Fanfest/ Walker Stalker Con, but more to follow, including a show roundup…

As far as I’m concerned, the best news of last week was the reveal of two pics of David Harbour as Hellboy. Other than some initial concerns about their approach to the Right Hand of Doom, he looks 100% minimum awesome and I have much stoke. Also, here’s the first photo they released, in color and with more wet metal look for the Hand. The above shot was the second, submitted by Harbour himself.

Before we dive in, a note about con photos and cosplay radness: we are posting con photos from San Francisco Comic Con and Rose City Comic Con on our Instagram account for Robot-Kraken: @robotkraken_redtentacle so take a peek to see some of the awesome stuff we saw at the shows…

OK, on to Robot’s Root:

Batman Type Stuff!

Aronofsky compares the rumors of the Joker film to his abandoned Batman Year One. I’m not down with some of the stuff he was cooking up, though I LOVES ME SOME YEAR ONE… but hey, a Lincoln Continental with two bus engines strapped to it sounds amazing. AMAZING.

I really enjoyed Fincher’s The Game back in the day, not merely because of it’s epic level of fantasy-stitching-of-SF-neighborhoods-together… apparently that story was the inspiration for Affleck’s now aborted Batman script. I can imagine a very interesting film coming out of that.

Lastly, Aronofsky intended to cast Joaquin Phoenix as Batman. Could have worked.

Blade Runner 2049 Type Stuff!

Witness these quotes, about Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling, with punching and scotch and blunt honesty, that cracked me up immensely. I mean, you can’t witness the quoted material, but you can witness the quote on paper. I’m sticking with it.

Here’s the second (and less interesting) short prequel film for Blade Runner 2049, set in 2048, and directed by Jake Scott. Dave Bautista Bautistaing about…

Star Trek Type Stuff!

Interesting article here on how the Discovery series, at least from production and marketing components, seems unable to decide what its audience is supposed to be.

Now director Jonathan Frakes has slipped that Discovery will be exploring the famous ‘Mirror Universe’ thing. I wonder if that’s how they will bridge the apparent disconnect between timelines, aesthetics, and characters.

Quentin Tarantino posits that good ST film approaches would involve paring down to focus on a few characters instead of the ensemble each time, expand on good TV episodes and do film adaptations of them, and embrace time travel. I mean, yeah I guess, but that was surprising ranting coming from a filmmaker who understands how things work. The ensemble nature of those films, while it is certainly true is less enjoyable as a narrative than more intimate character stories, is easier to pull off in episodic TV than in film, and when they DO focus on a few members of a beloved larger cast, the backlash can be swift.

Robotech Type Stuff!

If you liked IT and you like Robotech, well you’re in luck: Andy and Barbara Muschietti are tapped to do the adaptation, after they wrap IT 2.

Wonder Woman writer Jason Fuchs is tapped as the writer for the project, as well. I wonder if they’ll change the eponymous ‘U.N. SPACY’ which always was a dumb fiddling with english in the Macross material. That said, I adore it.

Zach Snyder released a teaser short for a small film he apparently put together while being home after exiting JL. I quite like the look of it. Of course, the look of things was never the problem with Snyder’s projects. I’ll give it a shot, though! Snow Steam Iron… he’s maybe going back to some of the imagery that made Suckerpunch initially so inviting, but with more of an emphasis on burning man friendly steampunk stuffs.

Semi-related, Snyder isn’t going to be doing any press for JL, which is interesting, adding to the feeling that maybe he pulled back from the project for more than just his family strife. I wonder. The reason I bring it up, though, is actually to enjoy the photo in the article, here, which I’ve seen a million times, and every single time I see it as Batman shooting some sort of heavy artillery weapon, two handed. HA. That would be controversial.

Witness test footage for the aborted War of the Worlds project from Ray Harryhausen. Pretty impressive for the time, as you would expect.

Adam Strange has been added to the upcoming Krypton TV series. I’m still uninterested but I think it’s a good move. The central conceit to these sorts of prequel expansions is that we need to be invested in the characters, despite knowing how it ends. With Rogue One, they were successful in making us care about characters we knew were going to bite it, which is hard. Here, I saw very little enthusiasm on the interwebs about studying the world of Krypton with Supes’ granddad as the central POV. The whole planet’s going to blow up, etc anyway. And the Snyderverse version was so glum. Anyway, adding a time traveling human space adventurer might give it a bit of pop. Also, unless the Green Lantern thing manifests out of JL, he would be the first human space type in the DCEU.

Red Sparrow is being described as the Black Widow movie Marvel forgot to make. I think it will be much more about sex, manipulation, and murder, and less about fighting proficiency. At least thats how it sounded in pre-production. Still, I love how it looks. The ballet-as-assassin-training thing is certainly peak Widow.

An interest concept: AD&D where players, or rather their characters, have to cook and eat their kills. Very, very specific interest there.

I love the NAME of Club 33, though I have no interest in going to one. I’m not that kind of wealthy adult Disney person.

I’m continually fascinated by the deep economic culture of MMPRPGs or whatever they’re called. Check out this story about a huge double cross with significant real world economic impact, in the EVE community.

Similarly, Blizzard is saying that policing the toxic behavior of players in Overwatch is slowing game development. So that’s a thing.

I REALLY like the logotype for Alicia Vikander’s Lara Croft film. That arrow motif cutting the lettering in half feels very evocative of both adventure and weird tropical death trappery.